


23 Emotions the Strawhat's feel, but can't explain

by Zaghan



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Mugiwara no Ichimi | Straw Hat Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2018-11-28 22:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11427327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaghan/pseuds/Zaghan
Summary: 23 one-shots centered around the Strawhat Crew. Some instances are canon, others are not.(based on the tumblr post by 'tai-korczak' titled "23 Emotions people feel, but can't explain" I do not own One Piece, nor any of the characters in it, all rights go to Eiichiro Oda)





	1. Sonder // Brook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own

Through his nonexistent eyes, Brook had seen a lot of things. However, it wasn't until he was alone with only the haunting voices of his dead crew mates to keep him company, did he actually start to look.

It was when he would stare at the bones of his forgotten friends did he realize how alive they really were. The skull to Jacka, a large man who played the cello, leaned against his forgotten instrument. Brook remembered how the round man would write songs about his wife and son who were waiting for him back home. He had a voice as bright as his eyes, and often used used it to spin tales of his adventures (everyone knew they weren't real, but they enjoyed them too much to say anything.)

Splayed next to the mast in thousands of tiny pieces, was the ribcage of a young man named McCarthy. He was a boy who although young, had the wisdom of a hundred monks. When questioned on his knowledge, the boy would go into vivid detail of his time growing up under the tutelage of a scholar, studying novel after novel until his hands would be full of paper cuts.

Under a broken, overturned table, were the linked hands of Mac and Mak. Two twin shipwrights who were never not seen together. They had grown up on the rocky coast of the Red Line and were picked up just before the crew had entered Paradise. They were their towns (and crews) trouble makers, but were loved none the less. They were the oldest of 5 other siblings, and always wrote letters back to their family of their adventures.

Brook could imagine meat and skin covering those bones, visualizing the body that had once homed a friend. Friends who had loved and lost alongside him. Yet all that was left to show off their complex lives, were bones that slowly, so so slowly, turned into dust.


	2. Opus // Zoro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opus: The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable

Zoro wanted to tell himself that he was stronger than this. That just a few days (weeks) without food wouldn't kill him, because such a trivial thing wouldn't kill the World's future best swordsman.

But god, as much as he didn't want to admit it, did his body hurt. Each breath felt like he was sucking up his own organs, his body trying to destroy itself if only to just live a few days more. His arms had become numb, their elevated positioning not allowing blood to flow up throughout them. Swallowing whatever spit he had left felt more like trying to intake sand.

And then he had showed up. Tan with slender arms and legs that seemed too skinny to be able to lift him over the wall. A smile much too big for his face graced his lips, pearly whites gleaming against the hot sun. Next to his nose was a scar, a curved black line with the stitch marks still showing. Zoro let his eyes wander above that scar, only for his breath to vanish and his muscles freeze.

The boys eyes were looking at him. Big and round and much too curious to be looking at a "criminal." The Straw-hat casted a shadow over the black eyes, and Zoro suddenly felt a chill go down his spine. As much as he knew that eyes cannot look through you, he was almost positive that those eyes weren't looking at him, but at something deeper.

Those seconds stretched into hours, and in that time, the swordsman had never felt so vulnerable. He felt invaded, like someone had entered his head and picked his mind apart piece by piece. He could feel his dignity be stripped away to be replaced by a sense of 'it's okay to run away, isn't it?' And Zoro had never felt more infuriated. He wanted to scream, to shout at the boy to go away until his already scorched throat burned even more. For this unfamiliar weakness to go away and for his pride to return.

And then it all vanished as the thin boy smiled wider, a loud 'shishishi!' escaping his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is supposed to take place when Zoro and Luffy first meet in Shells Town.


	3. Monachopsis // Franky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place

If the metal organs and steel skin weren't enough, then the fact that he had been hit by a sea train and was still alive to tell the tale must have been a dead give away.

Franky wasn't, and never would be, completely human.

Once upon a time he was, though. When his body wasn't immune to bullets and knives would easily pierce his skin. When he could feel Tom's warm hand rest on his shoulder and Iceburg's calloused fingers as he flicked his forehead. Although he was still Franky, the boy with a passion for creating, he was not THAT Franky. And sometimes it hurt.

Though he had managed to find a home with the Franky Family, a home where even though he was a cyborg, he was so so loved. But he would be reminded of his differences when one of his bros would get black-out drunk, a grim reminder that his body did not tolerate alcohol the way regular human's did. Or when his arms, much larger than normal, would brush up against someone. The other apologizing profusely while Franky pondered over the fact he hadn't even noticed a man, a full grown adult male, had run straight into him and he hadn't even noticed.

It changed when he became a Straw-hat. A black sheep like him wouldn't seem odd in a herd of black sheep after all. They were all misfits. People who did not conform to the ways of "normal" and instead broke that stereotype with the force of a thousand bulls (it got to the point that sometimes, when Franky compared himself to his nakama, he thought of himself as the only semi-normal one. Then he'd turn on his nipple lights and be reminded that he most certainly was not.) 

He had found a place where each time he took off an arm to repair it, he would get no weird looks (except of course for a shout of "SOOO COOOOOL~" from his starry-eyed captain.) When he casually opened his stomach to grab a cola, nobody would run, and would instead ask if he needed more to refill. A place where an anomaly like him was seen as irreplaceable.

And yes, sometimes it still hurt. But that indifference would disappear as soon as he saw his crew who, although also (very) different, would flash him a smile or a wave. Because although he was out of place, a hunk of metal in a world of bones and skin, he had never felt more human.


	4. Énouement // Nami

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Énouement: The bitter sweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your last self

Sometimes, as she gazes down at her crew rolling around on the deck, she wants to go back to that little girl surrounded by ripped maps and to tell her 'just hold on a little longer.' But Nami knows that she does, that she deals with the bloodied pens and the constant nightmares of her mother telling her it was her fault. And she steals, steals from undeserving pirates because that's all they were, weren't they? Murderers and thiefs and scum of the earth, all underserving of everything.

Absentmindedly she traces the scar covered by her tattoo. And she remembers just how wrong she was. Because as she's ready to crumble, to turn to dust and return back to the ground, he comes in. Places his worn out treasure on her head and she suddenly knows what hope looks like. Her view of it has changed since then, but it's still hope.

First it was wide smiles and the tang of metal. The wafting of smoke while a tale is spun somewhere in the background on a sheep-headed ship. Hope is still that, but now it's more. It's the clopping of hooves and the blooming of petals. The sound of hammering that oddly goes well with the tune of a violin and a ship that could sail a thousand seas.

Maybe her old self couldn't see it, but her current self sees it bright as day. A part of her also wants to warn her child self about the craziness of her future family, but there's no way to prepare for that (as much as she complains, she honestly wouldn't want it any other way).


	5. Vellichour // Robin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vellichour: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops

Some of the old relics were close to falling apart in her hands. The covers rubbed away from constant use and the pages painfully thin. Others weren't so worn out by age. A tear here or there, a smudge of ink spilling from the words, maybe even a simple bending of the corners.

Robin briefly wondered who else had touched these novels. Who had decided they no longer needed the fairy-tales from their childhood, or the autobiography of a brave warrior. Stories woven with words for eyes to drink in, only to sit on a shelf in a used book store in a shabby town. It was tragic, really, she decided.

As someone who prided herself in reading others, the familiar feelings oozing out of each cover didn't surprise her much. They begged to be held in tender hands, to be read with loud voices and for their knowledge to be heard. Longing leaked off the shelves, slipping into the cracks of the wooden floors and weaving itself into the air she breathed. She thinks she would have suffocated if she hadn't already been breathing it in her entire life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could give you a list of why I haven’t posted a chapter in four months. Or, we can skip the excuses, and not have to listen to me complain. In conclusion, sorry for not updating, thank you for the support, and Robin must be protected at all costs. That is all


	6. Rubatosis // Chopper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

The stethoscope feels heavy in his hooves. A weight in his hands that sometimes feels too heavy to carry. It’s what decides if he’s failed his duty or not as a doctor.

Quietly, almost hesitantly, he places the two pieces in his hears and is left with just the disk in his grasp. His arms are shaking as he places it against his chest. 

Bump

It’s there, he can hear it. Albeit a bit muffled by his fur. But it’s there. He’s alive. He’s still here. And for some reason, that unnerves him more than it should.

He’s memorized his nakama’s heartbeats. Luffy’s is constantly fluctuating; a stream of uncertain but strong beats. Zoro’s is slow, but steady, beating heavily against his chest. Sanji’s is quick, but smooth (not continuing when there’s a lady nearby, then it goes crazy.) Usopp’s is quick and frantic. Nami’s is light, but constant. Robin’s is a low, quiet thrum. Franks’s chest sounds like creaks and groans. Brook doesn’t have a heart (yohohoho!). But... hearing his own heart? He shouldn’t have to ever hear it. It’s his job to never have to have to heal himself, only heal others. He’s the only doctor that this crew has, so it holds an even higher meaning. But this beating in his chest shows he cannot save everyone. He can meet an untimely death just as much as anyone else can. 

Just like everyone else. Just as much as they are human, so is he.

He. Is. Human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m currently taking a writing class, and it’s constantly draining me. That’s mostly why chapters take so long to post, because most of my inspiration goes towards working on those writing pieces.


	7. 7. Kenopsia // Sanji

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abounded and quiet

The first thing he hears is nothing. The second thing he hears is still nothing, and it sends chills down his spine. There’s no one laughing or talking. No obnoxious skull jokes or pounding on the table.

It shouldn’t get to him, because he’s the only one in the kitchen. Of course there wouldn’t be any other noises. But it still let’s paranoia sink in. The ‘What if they’ve abandoned me?’ stays silent in the back of his mind. ‘Please don’t leave me alone’ is on the tip of his tongue. He feels it about to burst, he’s about to burst and he doesn’t want that to happen someonepleasecome-

The door slams open, nearly cracking the wood of the frame. A hand shoots through the open space and latches on to the cook’s shoulder, nearly making him topple. A body follows after it, slamming into him from behind and he knows he would’ve fallen over if this hadn’t happened before.

“Sanji, where’s the meat?!” His first instinct is to kick him from off of him, but he doesn’t. The thoughts have gone away as the rest of the crew tumble in behind him with callings of food and booze. It’s... better. This is what the kitchen is supposed to be. Full of fun and food and whatever the heck just so happens to occur during dinner.

“Jeez, shitty captain. You never change.”Luffy ooks up from stuffing whatever he can get his hands on into his mouth and tilts his head. ‘Seriously,’ the cook adds silently, ‘please never do.’


	8. Mauerbauertraurigkeit // Robin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like

She will be the death of them. This crew of wonderful, accepting people will all die by her hands.

(Saul smiles, even as the ice creeps up his neck and turns his skin blue.)

This group of dream catchers will all be taken down before they reach their goals. And it will be all. Her. Fault.

(The destruction reflects off the burning water. She wants to turn her back, but she can’t. She accepts her fate of being the only person who will witness these deaths.)

For the first time in her life, she doesn’t want to die. That terrifies her more than the thought of dying. So she pushes them away. 

(She becomes infamous for betraying every group she’s been a part of. No matter what kind of people they are, they must never get too close. That’s just how life is.)

CP9 gives her the offer that she needs. A chance to push the ones that have gotten too close away.

(“I... I WANT TO LIVE! TAKE ME TO THE SEA WITH YOU!”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this with a 102 fever, so forgive me if the chapter doesn’t quiet match with the emotion. I’ll also take this chance to inform you all that their will be no set order of which character each chapter will be about. So maybe they’ll be 2 about Usopp in a row, for example.


End file.
